


never, ever—

by asterions



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lowercase, Names of Choice, Pokemon Journey, Rival Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 04:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterions/pseuds/asterions
Summary: he puts in four letters, the four letters that will define his position as the defender of all that he has worked on.—in the blue corner, we have the reigning champion—(your move, rival.)





	never, ever—

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually pretty old please don't kill me (and my tendency for needless, cheap angst)

_never, ever—_

* * *

 

 

it takes a village to raise a child, the youngest oak grandchild hears over and over again.

 

partially because it’s true, he thinks _—_ pallet town has very few children, and he is more than enough to keep their eyes on. combine him with the black haired child next door and the brown-haired girl that used to live down the street, and every time they play the adults in the town also run a full time nursery.

 

but when he looks at storybooks that his mother got from the city for him and daisy, he sees something different. there are always two parents instead of twenty. he has the mom, but does he have a person to call dad? he has the aunties and uncles from down the street, but _—_

 

his mom looks at him and daisy with the smile she always has, gentle and patient and slightly worn down.

 

“your father isn't here right now, but you have grandpa.”

 

he is confused at this noncommittal answer, but shrugs it off.

 

“yeah, of course i do! right, grandpa?”

 

grandpa oak starts, as if broken by a trance. “oh, of course, er… john?”

 

daisy starts giggling, a classic response for a classic family tradition.

 

he puffs his cheeks, miffed. “gramps! you forgot again! my name is _—_ ”

 

•••

 

he is a wild child, with the energy and recklessness it employs. he doesn't understand that they place age restrictions for these journeys for a reason.

 

he doesn't see the pidgeot coming as he snakes his way into the tall grass _—_

 

And with a loud cry, it's diving for him.

 

the pidgeot misses, but he still feels the wind behind his neck, and he turns, shaken, but daisy is there.

 

(she usually is.)

 

her presence is enough for eyes to fall on her, both human and pokémon.

 

and she speaks sweet works, leaves a clefairy doll _—_ he knows it's her favorite one _—_ and it flees with the offering in its’ beak.

 

somehow, nature had it bent to her will.

 

blue doesn't remember much after that. but he figures if it was daisy, she likely gathered his then small form into her arms and cried, worrying about him _—_

 

he doesn't know about what his grandfather would’ve had said, if anything.

 

•••

 

even though the incident teaches blue not to walk by the tall grass again, it doesn't stop him from pridefully stomping around and yelling all the way to the hills that he emerged victorious from a pokémon attack.

 

he sees the neighboring black-haired child less and less these days, but that's okay. he doesn't need their company. getting into a wild encounter with a pokémon was the start of something new. he was now an adult.

 

(he has no time to play with children.)

 

but he could help him along. wouldn't that be generous of him?

 

if only he would stop crying, it’s almost more annoying than his constant silence.

 

“hey!”

 

he tries again.

 

“c’mon, quit your whimpering! say something!”

 

how annoying… maybe if he baited him a little?

 

“…tch, be that way. you know, i’m giving you a chance. if you can't get over this,” he sighs, “you can't grow up. my rival should be strong to keep me sharp. are you just gonna sit here, really? you need pokémon to try and become the champ.”

 

“eh, whatever. i don't know why i’m telling you this anyway. it’s not like you're going to follow.”

 

•••

 

the black-haired child does follow, in a way, because of his grandfather catching him suicidally walking in the tall grass outside town. and so, after the professor calling him by the wrong name _again_ (really, tsunekazu? _really?_ ) they are sat, with a choice of three pokémon. he gives him the first move.

 

“heh, i don't need to be greedy like you. i’m mature. go and choose!”

 

he chooses bulbasaur. how weak and predictable. knowing him, he was scared of the other two, and went for the safe choice.

 

not him, though. he can handle the risk and the power. and well, sucks to be him—now he has to face them in battle.

 

“i’ll choose this one, then!”

 

and as he moves to leave, he calls out to him, and they fight for the first time. charmander— _his_ charmander, what a thought—swishes his reptilian tail in anticipation as the bulbasaur cowers, vines raised, and he knows.

 

they will win.

 

and they do.

 

“charmander, come back!” and it returns to the ball from whence it came with a flash of light. “man, am I great, or what?”

 

he won't let the neighbor forget his victory. he will always be one step ahead.

 

(just watch him try to follow.)

 

•••

 

he battles him again as they look over indigo plateau. neither of them are qualified just yet (there are no badges between either of them, despite his own pace—definitely further than the other, of course) and the black-haired, newly red-hatted boy is holding a new map that he told daisy not to give, but he expected that the other boy would’ve gotten anyway.

 

(his family would always indulge that boy.)

 

he’s so hopeless, really, and what better to give him experience by than a pokémon battle?

 

it ends in a draw, and despite the closeness of such a match, he feels elated.

 

_so this is what a rival can do._

 

it’s the first time he’s admitted of the raven-haired boy as such, seriously.

 

but all he has to do is work harder, be better to overcome this.

 

i won’t let you get close, he thinks.

 

•••

 

by the time his rival trudges with his worn running shoes to cerulean city, he’s already been left behind; they have to deal with the knowledge their rival has already explored the city, got his badges, filled out his pokédex…

 

it's almost pitiful, really. like the black-haired boy was taking one step forward and two steps back.

 

at least he’s been training his pokémon. this is the first loss he’s had in awhile, he notes sourly.

 

he delighted even back then in instructing the younger boy. it was only natural, how good of him to give advice, right?

 

“oh yeah, right. i feel sorry for you.” at the raised eyebrow, he returns with a “no, really. you're always plodding behind me. so i’ll give you a little present as a favor.”

 

he dumps the fame checker in his outstretched hands. even under the hat where his eyes are shadowed, his rival looks up at him, silent as if almost saying;

 

“really, _this_ is what you're giving me?”

 

he can’t help it. it’s the perfect gift for a chatty gossip like him, who expresses more with his face than with his voice.

 

“smell ya later!”

 

and the boy matters as little as the dust that he kicks behind him as he leaves.

 

there are greater things in front of him, anyway.

 

_•••_

 

out of people to see on the s.s. anne, he wasn’t expecting him.

 

(his rival often had a way of surprising him, it seems.)

 

“imagine seeing you here! were you really invited?”

 

idly, he thinks his grandfather might’ve put him up to it. he always did favor him, after all. even though he had to pester his gramps so much for the ticket already in his pocket.

 

he talks to a silent audience about filling in the dex instead of battling immediately, perhaps to make him guilty (after all, if he spent this much time training, he should do a favor for his gramps. he was the person who gave a country bumpkin like him an opportunity to be out here into the world) and maybe to advise him. he’d always stay ahead, never making mistakes—

 

oh.

 

he lost again.

 

at least he’s trying to keep up.

 

•••

 

he looks at his raticate, who had been particularly unruly that day in the boat.

 

slowly, he returns him in a flash of red light—

 

and promptly boxes him, submitted him to the recesses of the storage system.

 

there was no need to keep around anybody who didn’t share his goal.

 

he still finds himself walking furiously at the unfairness of it all, and by the time he’d calmed down, he was in lavender town’s famous tower.

 

fitting. did a part of him die too?

 

he turns around, and true to past experiences, his rival has appeared again.

 

“what brings you here? is your pokémon dead? hey! it's alive!”

 

if he throws himself into battle more rigorously than usual, nobody comments on it,

 

he loses again, to that wimpy, chubby cheeked pikachu and the trainer that commanded him.

 

if that little rat could go that far, why couldn’t this one?

 

he decides to send the raticate to his grandfather. if nothing else, he would understand why his decision was necessary. he knew well, of course, on placing bets. who would win and who wouldn’t.

 

(he could tell that his grandfather expected him to lose and red to win.)

 

even as a professor, he could not ignore the roots of his trainerhood, how to sort out which moves, which pokémon, which trainers were better.

 

maybe to him, the raticate could be useful.

 

•••

 

always so _slow,_  wasn't he.

 

really, the light from the window indicated it was almost sunset when he finally decided to show up. the black haired boy offered no form of verbal greeting, merely trudging into the room.

 

this bleeding heart couldn’t ignore people in distress ever, could he. someone as soft as that couldn’t really be a trainer.

 

“hahaha! i thought you'd turn up if i waited here!”

 

team rocket really was a nuisance, wasn’t it. even though the grunts were so weak, he couldn’t deny the strength of their boss.

 

for once, he lost to someone other than his rival. it pissed him off.

 

there was no way he’d be able to take him on. beating him down right here and now was more a favor than anything.

 

later, after he loses again, he hears that team rocket has disbanded, probably by the force of a single trainer.

 

he grits his teeth and walks on.

 

•••

 

when looking for his eighth and final gym challenge, he encounters the former rocket boss again.

 

“ _battle me_ ,” he hisses. “i won’t lose this time.”

 

he can almost hear him smirk. it’s grating.

 

“as you wish.”

 

•••

 

the elite four challenge is a joke.

 

from the first to the last, they're all the same. they're so unworthy that he cannot remember the names they’ve made for themselves.

 

with a start, he _realizes._

 

his rival is behind him, following in his footsteps (of course, he snagged the championship first, he wouldn't be an oak if he didn't, right?), but he’s really the one chasing the black haired boy. he’ll always be a little late, sure—but what sort of rival would he be if he wasn't always going to be there to be challenged?

 

the former champion stands aside, asks him to input his team and his name for the record.

 

a lot of formal trainer names are too ridiculous to be true—brock for a rock type gym leader, for example—but he knows that what he puts in can define his existence here. he can cast aside the old him, ignore the fact that he is an oak here. become the best, in his own way, his own power.

 

he puts in four letters, the four letters that will define his position as the defender of all that he has worked on.

 

_—in the blue corner, we have the reigning champion—_

 

(your move, rival.)

 

•••

 

he comes.

 

(of course.)

 

contrary to what many may think, the speech he doles out to his long-awaited guest wasn't rehearsed, even though it comes as naturally as breathing.

 

“hey! i was looking forward to seeing you!”

 

his rival pushes up his red cap with that same characteristic motion. it almost makes him feel nostalgic.

 

but this arena is so much bigger than what once was that cramped lab, little pallet town is so far behind them. and even though he’s sure his rival knows, he must know, after all they’ve went through—

 

“my rival should be strong to keep me sharp! while working on my pokédex, i looked all over for powerful pokémon! not only that, i assembled teams that would beat any pokémon type!”

 

—it doesn't stop them from telling him anyway.

 

(look at me and only me.)

 

he’s still looking through him with that same blank expression, which vexes him slightly.

 

( _i_ am your opponent, why do your eyes look past _me?_ )

 

“do you _know_ what that means? i’ll tell you!”

 

it comes out as snarling, like the gnashing of teeth, and he makes an attempt to salvage his pride—

 

_“i am the most powerful trainer in the world!”_

 

_•••_

 

they say that at the top you lose everything.

 

that came true in less than _thirty minutes_ for him.

 

there was the pidgeot at his side, the thing that scared him, dissuaded him, became the start of his journey—and he's conquered it, made it tame to him. it rules the gray ceiling, contained but not limited, and bellows a sharp cry.

 

on his opponent’s side, there’s nothing more than that small, mousy rat with circles for cheeks.

 

unlike their first battle, he does not hold the advantage.

 

unlike their first battle, his opponent does not cower.

 

thunder booms, the crack of electricity, and faster than he has ever known, he has lost.

 

his grandfather comes,just to confirm the finality of his loss. everything he’s worked for has come to naught.

 

he’s so resentful.

 

(it’s not fair, it’s not fair.)

 

he feels the disappointment boring into his back, the now vulnerable loser that he is. his grandfather doesn’t seem to care, and instead begins to scold him.

 

of course, he still uses the wrong name.

 

“do you understand why you lost? you have forgotten to treat your pokémon with love and trust. without them, you will never, ever—”

 

win again, he thinks.

 

“—become champion again.”

 

he has lost the right to come into the hall of fame, but he wouldn’t want to anyway, and his rival follows his grandfather into the door behind him that he was guarding. to input his rival’s new name and title for the record.

 

champion blue sinks to the ground.

 

_—and in the red corner, the challenger has prevailed—_

 

and the newly-crowned champion red arises from the ashes of his defeat.


End file.
